


The Naturalist

by AdelaCathcart



Series: Request Fics [2]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Cuckolding, F/M, Masriel if you squint, Masturbation, Nice Guy Eddie Coulter, Somnophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27630221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdelaCathcart/pseuds/AdelaCathcart
Summary: When his wife comes to bed past midnight, smelling like another man’s cologne, Edward Coulter says nothing.
Relationships: Edward Coulter/Marisa Coulter
Series: Request Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029141
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	The Naturalist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skatingsplits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatingsplits/gifts).



When his wife comes to bed past midnight, smelling like another man’s cologne, Edward Coulter says nothing. He doesn’t even move. He could reach for her, greet her and pull her close, and she would lie there knowing that he realizes but won’t ask, slowly learning to hate him for his weakness, with awareness of his inadequacy leaching like poison into her heart. Or he can keep still as a naturalist in a blind, his feigned snores like stands of scrub-grass obscuring his vantage point as he dispassionately observes the behavior of the nocturnal animal.

She’s naked, he notes without judgement.

Like a cat in a sunbeam, her monkey dæmon paces for a bit before sprawling across her pillow, and Marisa selects a position on her stomach, one knee hitched up high against her chest. Her other foot touches Edward’s and doesn’t jerk away: she thinks he can’t feel it, and her toes are cold. The luxurious mattress absorbs her slight movements. It was designed to do this, Edward remembers, so that the conjugal pair might not intrude on one other’s separate dreams. The minor tremors of one can pass unnoticed by the other, and this courteous arrangement preserves an endangered marriage. What the mattress cannot do, the husband will. He snuggles under the duvet, where the buttery fragrance of her arousal suffuses the heated air the way the sweet scent of bread fills a bakery. Try as he might, he cannot hear the wet lapping sounds her fingers must be making, but he senses little grunts and hitches of breath, rough animal breathing so unlike the delicately modulated music that narrates his days. Now a shudder, too violent to suppress. Now a vulgar, stifled moan.

She stills, catching her breath, waiting for her breathing to slow to a semblance of decency, and then she rolls to her husband’s gentle arms. He embraces her, more abruptly than he might otherwise do, imitating the blameless, impulsive affections of the sleeper. She must not realize how her heart is pounding. She whispers a name, muffled against his chest—it seems to burst from her mouth against her will, she twists to smother it too late. It’s not his, because his name contains no sibilants.

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a prompt from @asrielcoulter on tumblr: "Marisa masturbating with Edward in bed next to her, awake or asleep."
> 
> Send a tumblr ask with a prompt to @torrefaction-of-silver and I might write you a mini-fic!


End file.
